Playing for Keeps Page 5

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then you know it lasted all of a week and then he got on a plane and left my life for good. Well, for ten years anyway, and then came back again for a short fling. A very, very short fling.’

  ‘Magenta, it was more than a fling. He told me all about it. How he tried to make it up to you, wanted you so desperately he gave up practically everything he owned in Brazil to be with you.’

  ‘He said that?’

  She nodded and looked down at her fidgeting hands. ‘He also told me that when he thought you were back in love with him and that everything was going to be okay, you bailed.’

  ‘He used those words? I bailed?’

  ‘N… no. Hugo didn’t say bailed. Look, I’m kind of nervous. I don’t know how to say this and I don’t know, now, why I came when…’

  I stood up, becoming uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be reminded of my near miss. Of how I almost let Anthony go because Hugo had done such a great job of convincing me he and I should never have parted and that it was the greatest mistake of his life. I walked to the wall and leaned on it for support. The tiny office window above me was open and I reminded myself to close it after Stella left. I wanted her to leave. I didn’t want to talk about Hugo. Not now. Not after all this time.

  Stella tentatively rose to her feet. Great, I thought, she’s leaving and taking with her whatever reason it was that made her come here in the first place. Did Hugo send her?

  ‘I’ve gone about this all wrong,’ Stella said, wringing her hands. She stooped to pick up her bag, hooking it over her shoulder but stopping to make eye contact with me.

  ‘Hugo doesn’t know I’m here. If he did, he’d kill me.’

  ‘Why would he kill his girlfriend?’ Maybe I’d had a lucky escape after all.

  ‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

  ‘You said you were in love with him.’

  ‘I didn’t. I said I loved him. As far as Hugo is concerned I love him as a friend. We’re the best of friends in fact.’

  ‘Stella, I don’t mean to pry but you look like a woman in love.’

  ‘Do I?’ She bowed her head. ‘Not that Hugo would ever notice. And I’ve never told him. It would be a complete waste of time. He hasn’t loved anyone, or allowed himself to, not since you. No one could hold a candle to you, Magenta. Not in his eyes. No one.’

  I swallowed hard. I began to tidy away imaginary things on the otherwise tidy table, straightening the interview chairs, tucking them under the table so tight the front wheels were almost off the floor and would surely tumble backwards.

  ‘I had to come,’ Stella went on. ‘Hugo is back in the UK. For good this time. Or so he says. He’s up in Cumbria at the family farm, staying with his dad for a few weeks longer before…’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Well, he’s coming to London. There’s a part of London that’s dear to him and that he’s been missing a lot lately.’

  ‘You mean he’ll be living here now? Permanently?’

  My mind cast itself back to the months following my and Hugo’s absolute and final breakup. Hugo didn’t take no for an answer at first. He continued to try to change my mind and take him back. But I’d told him, over and over, I couldn’t go back to him. I was in love with Anthony. He finally let me go.

  Stella cleared her throat and began tracing a finger over the grain in the wood of the table separating us.

  ‘He’ll be here permanently,’ she said. ‘But maybe temporarily too.’

  ‘Well, that makes no sense.’ I gave a weak laugh.

  Stella looked me in the eye again.

  ‘Hugo is sick, Magenta. Very, very sick. He would never have contacted you himself. He wouldn’t want pity or anything like that. He promised himself he’d try to forget you but I know he never really did. He went out with a few women, once or twice, you know? But I think it was only ever physical. He never told me he’d fallen in love.’

  ‘Not even with you?’

  ‘No one since you, Magenta. I know. Like I say. We’re the best of friends. It’s how he sees me and I accept that. But… but I wouldn’t consider myself a friend if I didn’t come and tell you about his health now. He’s going through a bad time and it’ll only get worse.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t…’

  ‘Please, Magenta. Go and see him. When he comes back to London. Just once. That’s all I ask. I know how much it would mean to him.’

  It was my turn to look down at the lines running through the wooden table. My immediate reaction was, yes, of course I’ll go and see Hugo. How could I know he was sick, living in London and never once go and see him? But in the split second that followed and before I could ask Stella for his address, I thought of Anthony. He wouldn’t be happy about it. I know there was a lot of jealousy there as far as Hugo was concerned, and I think the feelings of jealousy and hate were mutual between them. That’s why I’d never told Anthony Hugo had been in London at the very start of my relationship with him. As far as he was concerned, Hugo was out of my life, out of the country and back in the place he’d called home for nearly ten years. Brazil.

  ‘You know, I really think we should let sleeping dogs lie, Stella,’ I said. ‘What could I do for Hugo that a good hospital couldn’t? I’ve got the addresses of some good hospitals over here. I could—’

  She shook her head and sighed. ‘That side of things is already taken care of.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘Look, I appreciate you’re trying to do a good turn for a friend and everything but it’s just not a good time for me and it’s not a place I should go. Not now. You know I’m seeing someone, right? It’s been, what, over three years since I saw Hugo and I’ve been with my boyfriend for as long.’

  ‘You mean Anthony?’

  ‘Yes, I mean Anthony. Jesus, if you know so much about my life then you’ll know it took almost for ever to get over Hugo that first time around. I did a lot of soul-searching before agreeing to meet up after ten years. I have… I had a lot of feelings for Hugo when we got back together. But it wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have my heart, Stella.’ I put my head down again. ‘I only wish you had his and he had yours, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be there for Hugo, no question about that. But I had to come here. I had to at least try to make you see he needs you right now.’ She held her palms up to me. ‘But I should go. Like I say, this wasn’t his idea, it was mine, and now I know I should never have come. It was crazy. This whole thing is crazy. Just forget I was here. Would you?’

  I nodded. ‘And please, before you go, please understand why I’m refusing.’

  ‘I do.’ Stella backed away to the door and opened it softly, stepping out while still looking into my eyes. ‘Look, before I go… please just hear me out.’ She put up a hand and then dipped into her straw bag, pulling out a well-used notebook with a pen clipped to the inside sleeve. Flicking through, she turned to some coloured pages at the very back that all seemed to have notes and scribbles on. She tore the corner off the red notepaper and started writing.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s my name and number. You know? If you change your mind.’

  I looked at her as if to say, please don’t do this, and she read that, very plainly, through my eyes.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Forget it. I understand.’

  She looked around the room one last time and then over her shoulder. Nervously she tried to return the pen and notebook and the torn-off piece of paper to her straw bag. ‘He’s very proud about what you’ve accomplished. Good luck, Magenta. With everything.’

  Without a look back, she was gone. She left a wave of incense and lavender behind her and also the little piece of paper on which she’d written her number. Somehow we’d both missed seeing it flutter to the floor when she was fussing over her bag, nervous and looking very much on the verge of tears, or maybe angry with herself for coming here in the first place. I st
ooped to pick up the number. I held it over the wastepaper bin for a few seconds but something made me stop. Think. I decided to hold on to it just for a while and then I’d shred it at work for safety reasons. You know, confidentiality and all that.

  My conversation with Stella was definitely the strangest I had that day. Even stranger than the one with the homeless woman who had found her way to the back office while Riley’s back was turned and asked me and Anya if we wanted to score some weed. Anya had contemplated the offer but when I said we were busy seeing candidates for a job, she sat down in the interview chair and refused to budge until we agreed to see her audition piece for Les Miserables.

  ‘It really isn’t that kind of job,’ I’d told her. She’d finally left saying we were biased and did we want a copy of the Big Issue instead of the weed.

  When I stood outside the shop, locking up, I couldn’t help thinking of Hugo and the way Stella spoke about him. I thought about how tragic it was that Hugo still loved me and here was a woman who would seek out his ex just to make him happy while he was on his sickbed. As I headed for home I pondered the woman who had walked past the shop on so many occasions. Since seeing her the first time and since our conversation it was clear Stella must have walked by at random times just so she could meet me. I knew for a fact that Hugo wouldn’t have known about the shop, so how could she? Then again, anyone googling Magenta Bright would have seen the new store location and eventually found me there. But why not just come into the office? I was usually always there. Having said that, there might have been times when she walked by the office but failed to get up the nerve to come in. Without a big window at ground level I might have missed seeing her go by a thousand times.

  To have made so much of an effort and to have built up the courage it took to go against what Hugo had said, which was not to tell me he was in London and extremely ill, made me wonder if there was more to this visit than she was letting on.

  Why was Stella so jumpy and nervous? At times she’d looked as if she wanted to cry. Maybe she was tearful because of how sick Hugo really was. In which case, shouldn’t I just give in and go and see him, bring him grapes? Surely seeing him in his time of need was the most decent thing I could do.

  I rounded the corner into our mews. The house would be empty because Anthony was still in Italy. I put the key in the lock and contemplated visiting Hugo without Anthony having to be any the wiser but quickly thought otherwise when I saw how my and Anthony’s coats hung so closely together on the rail just inside the front door. The sleeve of his blue rain jacket looked to be holding hands with the sleeve of my red M&S mac.

  I thought of Anthony as I flopped onto the sofa in the living room and kicked off my shoes. It had been a long day, I’d achieved a lot in a short space of time, and going to see Hugo would only be a setback. A complication our relationship could do without. I leaned my head back and looked up at the ceiling. Something wasn’t adding up about Stella’s visit. I just hadn’t worked out what.

  Chapter 8

  ‘I miss you so much.’

  Before I knew it, the evening had drawn in and I was still on my back on the big red sofa in the small living room, looking up at the shadows cast by the tree outside the window. The shadows had formed the shape of a tall, thin man dancing on the ceiling above me but had changed shape and angle as the sun began to disappear from behind the rooftops opposite. My mind had gone off at weird tangents as I thought about Stella’s visit and subsequently my relationship with Hugo.

  It hadn’t been a bad relationship, not really, but it had always been tinged with a hint of disaster. It was clear Hugo and I were never meant to be, but I still couldn’t stop wondering about his mysterious illness and why it would bring him back to London. Maybe he hoped to run into me by chance and start the whole pursuit thing again. That could be why he didn’t want his friend Stella to give the heads-up about his visit.

  I thought about how different my life could have been with Hugo. He was as artistic as Anthony but as a musician, not a painter. He was also as keen as Anthony was for me to fulfil my dreams. He could have been just as supportive of my career choice as Anthony, just as helpful, just as proud of my achievements. I did love Hugo once, so deeply I thought I would die when he walked out on me. But my love for Anthony was so different. So complete, I suppose you could say. Just when I thought loving a man with all of my heart would be impossible, there he was. And there he was on the other end of the phone to me now.

  ‘I miss you too, Magenta.’ Anthony had been busy on his commission all day but he hadn’t been happy with the results of two of his paintings. He was on the penultimate one, at last, and he’d extended his stay by another two weeks. I worried that the time would run out and he wouldn’t finish the job in time and end up staying even longer. That would mean him missing the Grand Opening of my shop and I’d be really upset if that happened.

  ‘Are you close to finishing the paintings?’ I asked, making imaginary circles in the air with my toes.

  ‘You know it doesn’t work like that, darling. I want to be finished, I want to be home with you, but you know I won’t be happy until I’ve thrown everything into this series.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Only too well.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I’ll be back for the opening.’

  ‘Pretty sure?’ When did definitely sure become pretty sure, I wonder. ‘I know, I know. I’m not grumbling. I just want you to be here.’

  ‘How about you coming down at the weekend for a day or two?’

  ‘No, I’ll just hold up the process and delay you even more.’ I sighed, trying to move the mouthpiece out of range so I didn’t sound pathetic. I was being mature and accepting that this was his life. Yet I loved coming home to Anthony when I was stressed with work and it was a very stressful time. ‘Besides, I finally have staff for the shop. As soon as I get their acceptance letters I’ll need them with me stocking up the shop and arranging it so it looks fabulous. You still haven’t seen the finished job on the refurb.’

  ‘I got the WhatsApp photos.’

  ‘But that’s not the same. Okay, sorry.’ I sat up. ‘I’m not going to moan. It’ll only make the time drag if I stay miserable because you’re not here. I’ll let you go back to your work and I’ll speak to you soon.’

  ‘You don’t have to rush off already, do you?’ He sounded sad.

  ‘No, I don’t. It’s just that I haven’t eaten and I could do with a bath.’

  ‘Okay, call me from your bath and talk dirty to me.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron?’

  ‘Maybe. Why don’t you get naked and we can discuss it further?’

  ‘How about we both get naked now and…’ My mobile rang from my bag. It was Anya’s ring, R. Kelly’s ‘Bump N’ Grind’, her favourite song. ‘Shit. It’s Anya. I need to take this… you know, with the baby and everything?’

  ‘That’s okay. Answer it. Call me when you can. I’m going to get some food.’

  I imagined Anthony at the seafood restaurant just a mile up the coast from where he had been painting the seascape series for his client. He’d described to me the overweight owner and how she pinched his cheek between her chubby fingers and told him he needed to eat like a man and not a bird, as if Anthony had been her own son. Sea birds swooped past the open windows and cawed loudly. The sea was rough, big waves pounding against the rocks just below. The whole frontage of the restaurant was concertinaed open and all he could smell was the sea, fresh fish and balsamic vinegar. Anthony would be speaking Italian to the owner and anyone he met while out dining. Even though he told me every time we spoke that he missed me and loved me, I knew he’d be totally happy and well settled with everyday life in Italy.

  I was far too busy to fly out there, even for a day. Sure, as the time stretched on, the independent woman in me was doing well, but the nights grew lonelier than I wanted them to be. But I was coping. I was strong. It made me wonder, if I wasn’t a crumbling mess, then did Anthony really miss me tha
t much?

  During our first week of separation I went about my day as if a big part of me was missing. Anya thought it soppy and kept reminding me about what great ‘miss you’ sex we’d have when Anthony finally finished that bloody commission. Of course I didn’t tell her that there had been very little action in the bedroom when Anthony was here, so that wasn’t the issue. It was ironic he should say anything about my talking dirty because, prior to his leaving, our love life was just that: all talk. All I was really longing for was for Anthony and me to sort out what was missing. Something certainly was.

  ‘I love you, darling, but I’d better go,’ I said, looking at the image of Anya and her baby bump, posing for a Marie Claire article, on my phone.

  ‘No problem,’ said Anthony. ‘Love you too.’

  ‘Oh, you are there,’ said Anya in a clipped voice when I picked up.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I was sitting to attention now.

  ‘Actually I need you to come over. I’m having Braxton Hicks contractions.’

  ‘Do you even know what Braxton Hicks contractions are, Anya?’

  ‘Not entirely. But the baby might come at any moment and you’re supposed to be my birth partner.’

  ‘The baby isn’t coming at any moment, hon. You’ve weeks to go and you were perfectly fine today at the interviews.’

  ‘Those interviews must have brought on the Braxton Hicks.’

  ‘Darling, Braxton Hicks are the practice contractions,’ I said relaxing into the sofa now I knew it was nothing serious. ‘You’re not about to give birth if those are the kind of contractions you’re having. They just let you know your body is getting ready for the big event. That’s all. I remember Amber going into labour – both times – and believe me, you’ll be in no doubt when it’s the real thing.’

  ‘Frighten me, vye don’t you, Madge!’